Mexico stuns Peru with thrilling five-set win

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, June 12, 2014 – Hosts Mexico scored a stunning five-set victory over Peru 25-23, 16-25, 28-26, 21-25, 15-11 in the last match of Pool A in Day Two of the Women’s Volleyball Pan American Cup at Juan de la Barrera Gymnasium on Thursday.

The Mexicans have now a 1-1 win-loss record while the Peruvians are winless in their two outings at the preliminary round.

Claudia Rios scored a tournament-high 22 points to lead four Mexicans who reached double figures in the scores. Andrea Rangel contributed 18 points while Gema Leon and Lizbeth Sainz added 13 and 10, respectively.

Peru’s Angela Leyva finished with 21 points followed by Maguilaura Frias with 14. Clarivett Yllescas and Karla Ortiz each had 13 points in the losing cause.

“We have been working hard and today everything went right for us,” Mexico’s Rangel said. “We have a lot of decision and followed the instructions of our coach. That was the biggest key for the win.”

“Obviously I am very happy,” Mexico’s coach Jorge Azair commented. “We were able to solve some difficult situations and today we played better than yesterday adjusting the serves and the defense. We worked well with the counter-attacks but still need to reduce errors and play with better tactic discipline.”

“We were not able to define in the key moments and we lacked attitude,” Peru’s captain Karla Ortiz expressed. “Part of that is the lack of experience. We need to play as a team. The distribution of the offense was predictable with a lot of the attacks in zone four which make easier for them to block.”

“The match could have gone either way,” Peruvian coach Natalia Malaga said. “We need to continue working correcting the mistakes and the girls learning also from the other teams. We need to work more in the psychological aspects. But that is a work that take hours, days and years.”